The Virus
by Gibsos
Summary: The world order has been completely upended by a virus... what appears to be a zombie virus. Derek and his family are the newcomers in a town of survivors. Now that they've gotten there their lives should be relatively trouble free. Should be. Just their luck that the town goes nuts just as they arrive. Chlerek zombie AU (no powers).
1. Chapter 1

Luckily the old warehouse didn't have very heavy security; Chloe pulled a small screwdriver out of her pocket and after some deliberation lifted herself up into the (rather large) vent. She had just started inching forward when she heard a voice and froze where she was.

"Chl- *cough* Chloe?"

Chloe's eyes widened and she jerkily tried to turn around and stick her head out of the vent; there was a large metal clang as she hit her head. "_Liz_?" she asked, trying to see through the small tears springing up in her eyes. She had probably just attracted the attention of every living thing in a five mile radius with that noise, but she would have to worry about that later. "We thought you died!"

Finally, she was able to see clearly, Chloe looked down to see a girl with waxy pale skin, bruises around her eyes and mussed blonde hair; but it was definitely Liz, right down to the large yellow mickey mouse sweater. Liz had caught the virus.

* * *

Derek groaned and rubbed his temple, closing his eyes briefly. This girl was going to give him a heart attack. She was already almost fifteen minutes late, which, ok, maybe didn't sound like a lot but there should either be no hold-ups, or she was probably dead already. How she even got permission to go look for supplies with them was _beyond_ him. She may not be quite as useless as he had initially thought, but she couldn't fight for shit, he briefly entertained the idea that she had been sent with them in an attempt to get them all killed.

Derek had had a less than stellar opinion of her from the moment he first saw her.

Coming to this town of survivors was supposed to give them a break from constantly running, but Derek had the feeling that ever since they had arrived his blood pressure had been steadily increasing with each passing moment. If it were actually possible to have an aneurism due to stress he was sure he would have had one already. The people here were ridiculous – mostly rich kids and their parents who simply flew into this remote town when the epidemic started. Not Derek and his family. They took care of _themselves._ They _survived._

* * *

"They're underground. You can find them by looking for the old abandoned summer camp; the security around the camp is minimal, even if they do have crazy surveillance, but to actually get to where they are you need to find the cabin with the yellow XX on the door." A couple weeks ago Derek and his family managed to get in contact with a friend of his Dads, he said he thought he was about to succumb to the virus, but he knew of a town of survivors… he just hadn't managed to get there in time.

They had finally reached the place; in the middle of the night. Twigs cracked in the distance sounding like gunshots (although Derek was starting to wonder what _exactly_ was walking around breaking the twigs), shadows loomed around them; Simon jumped every time. They crept through the camp without incident until Derek spotted the yellow X's. He had always had better than average night vision; not by much, none of that 'as if by the light of day' crap, but he would point something out then after a bit of squinting and leaning forward whoever he was with would eventually be able to make it out as well.

Five hours later and they found themselves sitting in a small, square, completely white room. _S__till._ Someone had been by to see them of course, they had gotten water, a little food, and had a blood sample taken each. Derek grumbled; how long could it take to do a few blood samples?

Just at that moment a blonde woman walked in. She appeared to be in her thirties and introduced herself as Lauren, but what was most noticeable was that she was devoid of the hazmat suit she had used earlier to take their blood. "I'm the doctor here," she smiled, "your blood work came back fine, my niece will be over in a minute to show you-".

A small girl burst through the door breathing heavily, she had the same blonde hair as 'Lauren', a rounded face, large blue eyes, and looked to be five foot nothing. Derek scoffed, he could take her in a fight with his eyes closed; they had heard this was just a town full of rich people – when the epidemics started they had just flown over whereas anyone else who wanted a chance in hell had to _actually work for it._

"Ah, speak of the devil," Lauren said. "This is my niece, Chloe."

"Hello Chloe, I'm Kit and these are my two boys, Simon and Derek," he said, gesturing to each of them in turn.

"Hi! Follow me," for one single second Chloe made eye contact with Derek, catching the expression on his face. "I'll t-take you to where you'll be staying," Chloe stuttered; Derek was not impressed.

* * *

At her realization Chloe's heart stopped. Absolutely stopped. Liz never should have left. She should have stayed home and been ok. Things like this shouldn't have to happen to such good people.

A weak groan brought Chloe back to reality. Liz had the virus, there was nothing she could do, but by being so close to her she was putting herself – and everyone she was about to meet up with – in danger. She wouldn't drag them all down. She started edging slowly back into the vent.

Liz regained composure with effort. "Ho- *cough* how is Tori holding up?"

Chloe's train of thought was – again – completely derailed by Liz, this time turning to immense feelings of guilt pricking at her. She _lived_ with Tori, she should know how she's doing, she should have checked up on her when it became obvious Liz wasn't coming back. "Ok, I think…"

Liz looked troubled.

"I mean, _obviously_, she misses you… and she's sad. She kind of just... shut herself in her room."

She nodded, "tell her I miss her too... and promise… you have to make sure she's ok."

I nodded and started to inch back again, "Liz, I promise I'll make sure Tori's fine, but I need to… I need to go. Meet up with the rest of the group."

Liz paled, though Chloe wasn't sure how that was possible, "Oh god, I could give you the virus."

"No, I'm sure it's fine!" She wasn't. Chloe was terrified. "But I have to go, I'm late already."

* * *

Despite his amazing night vision, Derek hadn't been able to properly see the camp when they arrived. He didn't get the chance until about two weeks later when they went above surface again. The cabins were covered in graffiti, faded in colour from the elements, same as the signs throughout the camp proclaiming cabin names and directions to rock climbing walls and canoe shacks and the dining hall.

A small group of people came up to the surface daily to checked on the gardening patches scattered throughout the camp. They had been assured that whatever virus was turning people into zombies could not survive outside of a human host for more than a couple seconds, so the food, though relatively unguarded, should be fine. There were also people who thoroughly washed the food before it was eaten and everyone who went up - no matter for how short a time - was given a blood test upon returning.

Derek thought they were kidding themselves, this virus had taken over god knew how many people; it was only a matter of time before it got past their piddly little security measures. Today they were going out to scavenge food and try and raid a pharmacy. One of the rich, fat residents had gotten sick.

"Follow me," said a figure wearing a sweatshirt that went to her knees, jeans, and a large gas mask as she darted around cabins and rows of vegetables. If Chloe weren't so much shorter than everyone else he wouldn't be able to tell her from the cocky six foot tall teenage boy who was with them. Derek tailed along a few steps behind a man named Milos (the 'supervisor' for today), and Rae, the only other member of their party, kept pace with Chloe at the front gabbing with her.

Derek wouldn't have gone at all but he was getting stir crazy and driving his brother and Dad to insanity along with him. There wasn't too much of a risk anyway. From the sounds of it they had done this a million times before. Dr. Saunders was doing research into a vaccine for the zombie virus and needed a lot of supplies they didn't have, Chloe was her runner.

* * *

Chloe crawled in through the vent and dropped lightly to the floor. "Chloe! About time!" Rae called, rushing forward. "You have no idea how dull the guys are."

Chloe stepped back quickly, back colliding with the wall, and held up a hand to ward Rae off.

"What is it?"

"I saw Liz," she answered, practically in a whisper.

"_What?"_ Rae screeched in return. "You mean she's alive!? That's great, where is she?"

"No, Rae - I mean, yes, she's alive, but she's got the virus. I don't know if I c-caught it or not but you need to stay back." Rae's eyes went wide.

"_What the hell were you thinking!?"_ Derek roared, looming over to the two of them and stopping next to Rae, who was a fair distance away from Chloe.

Chloe jumped slightly and blinked at him owlishly (though he didn't know it due to the gas mask). 'Where did he come from?' she thought to herself.

"Standing around talking to some infected girl. And then bringing it back here to get all of us killed as well! Good going." Chloe could feel the weight of Derek's glare through his mask.

His tirade managed to make her snap back into action, and she took a deep breath. "Look, I just came to tell you what happened, and make sure you can get back by yourself. I'll go ahead and wait until all of you are done getting tested before I get mine done." That way she'd never be in contact with them after this – unless of course she was clean, she reminded herself, then it wouldn't matter either way, everything would be fine.

As Derek continued to tirade about her carelessness Chloe took a look at him and realized he wouldn't be done for a while. She looked back up at the vent (too high to jump to), then grabbed a crate a few feet to her right to hoist herself up on. As she crawled away and Derek's voice began to ebb, she reasoned to herself that she really couldn't afford to sit through the whole thing and further risk infecting them.

* * *

A/N - I wasn't sure about posting this cause I'm not sure if I'll be able to continue but I figured why not. I know it kind of jumps around a lot, if I continue the next couple chapters shouldn't be like that. Kind of a lame name, I know but I normally don't do zombie fics (actually I never do) and I don't completely know where this one's going.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N -**Ok, a couple things actually relevant to the story (although not integral, you can skip if you want). First, Chloe's stutter. I know last chapter it seemed as if she had it still, but I figure hey, she's lived through a zombie apocalypse. So for this story the stutter will only be appearing when she's under a huge amount of stress. If you look at the last chapter you'll notice it only really appears when she's talking about thinking she has the virus or when Derek is freaking her out.

I now have a slight idea where the story is going, I figure it'll be around five chapters. That's it, hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

Chloe felt as if the air was being squeezed out of her. She had spent the last several hours hanging around the camp waiting for the others to finish their blood tests, her mask was stifling but she had resisted the urge to take it off in case she hadn't yet been infected.

She could hear nothing but a strange high pitched screeching noise that reverberated in her ears. After she had finally considered it safe to go into the waiting room she had been met by Aunt Lauren in her hazmat suit. She had heard from the others that Chloe might be infected (although she hadn't really been _that_ close to Liz, but the others didn't know that), and she came back every few minutes to hover awkwardly and try to comfort Chloe. Unfortunately she only seemed to make it worse by _reminding_ Chloe of the predicament she was in every few minutes.

Chloe had been leaning back, eyes closed, trying to breathe evenly, avoid panic, when a large snap made her sit upright in her seat. The door had burst open and a white and blonde blur had charged forwards and practically mauled her, making high pitched noises and muttering about how she was so worried and how she had promised to protect her and how Chloe was never leaving town again – she would find another runner for her research.

"Aunt Lauren, calm down!" Chloe said, trying to extract herself from her Aunt who was slowly squeezing the life out of her. "I can't breathe!"

"I am _never_ letting you go again!"

* * *

Chloe walked into her house as quietly as possible. By the time she had gotten cleared it was already the middle of the night and she didn't want to wake up Tori. Families had had to double up in houses; it used to be Chloe, her father, Aunt Lauren, Liz, and Tori, but with Liz gone the house just seemed empty. Aunt Lauren had slowly been growing obsessed with her work and both Chloe's dad (Steve Saunders), and Tori had been moping in their rooms.

No one could really blame Tori – she had just lost one of the only people she considered a friend. On the other hand, whenever Lauren caught sight of Steve she scoffed and muttered something about a 'waste of space'. He hadn't handled the transition from travelling businessman to purposeless apocalypse survivor very well.

For once, the empty, quiet house was a relief and Chloe collapsed on her bed.

* * *

"Milos!"

"Chloe! You're OK?"

"Yep! I'm clean!" Chloe liked talking to Milos; he was their neighbour and still the tiniest bit rusty at English. The two of them walked through the twisting paths between houses; whoever had designed the town definitely didn't do so with convenience in mind, houses were crammed into the space and sometimes you just had to set off in the right direction and hope you got where you wanted eventually.

"Do you know the movie for today?"

"Uhh, I think it's-"

"Chloe!"

"Kari! Hey!"

"We heard you were out hunting for brains!"

"Uh, no, all clea-"

"You're looking surprisingly lively for a zombie."

"Miranda, I'm f-"

"Hey Chloe," more and more of the 'teenager faction' of the town started to crowd around them on their way to the bi-monthly movie day and Chloe and Milos were quickly forgotten in the hubbub. They exchanged a sheepish smile and a half a shrug as the disorganized swarm of people filtered through the city. The group travelled down well-worn dusty dirt streets which merged into other dirt streets carved straight into the earth. When their path merged with another road they followed after another group of upper middle agers.

The two groups made no sign to greet each other but some of the adults did send the group primarily comprised of teenage girls a scathing look and pointedly ignored them the rest of the walk. The theatre, once they reached it, was further divided into groups which sat in front of a large painted white wall faced with a projector at the back. Group lines were strict and did not tend to cross, they were divided by gender, age, race, and occasionally family and the noise of them all talking buzzed like angry hornets.

"Is that _her?"_

"Which?"

"The blonde one."

"Oh, for heaven's sake be more specific!"

"The tiny one."

"Oh that's her alright."

"They _let her back in the city?!"_

"Well her aunt _is_ the one running the blood testing."

There were gasps all around, "brilliant!"

"It's a conspiracy!"

"They've endangered us all!"

"I say we run 'em out of town."

"Perfect!"

"We can't let some little brat drag the rest of us down, can we!?"

"I heard the aunt has a cure for the virus."

"Why hasn't she released it?"

"Why would she?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Yeah, don't try and be fucking coy with us!"

"Out with it, we know you're dying to say!"

"Well, _I_ heard that before the outbreak, they were _poor._"

"Poor?"

"Exactly, but now that we're all stuck here they figure we're_ equals_ or something."

The man sitting to the immediate left of the speaker shuddered and gave the girl, currently weaving her way through the crowd, a dirty look, as if he was considering getting up and driving her and her aunt out of the town at that very moment. However, she walked past him without incident and remained completely oblivious to the topic of their gossip. The man didn't make a single move and nor did any of his coconspirators, _of course._

Standing off to the side and looking hesitant and confused was Kit Bae and his family. Inter-town disputes didn't tend to come with a guidebook and they weren't completely sure where they should go. "My neighbour Milos is saving some seats for us, if you need somewhere to sit."

Simon smiled, "sounds good," and the group started working their way back to the other side of the crowd.

A woman gasped quietly, "Are _those_ the new people? Why are they with _her?_"

"They could have gone up to anyone here but they choose to pal around with the zombie-to-be?"

"We're such a friendly town! Why make friends with _her?_"

"I bet plenty of people came to welcome them, even invited them to the movie today!"

"We can't trust them."

"Well not now, anyway!"

"That's for damn sure."

"Shh! They're coming!"

The conversation was quickly stamped out as Chloe, Mr. Bae, Simon, and Derek shuffled past. "Thanks for letting us tag along," Simon and Chloe lead the four of them through the crowd while Derek and Mr. Bae discussed something boring and science-y in the back.

"No problem, I know it can be kind of hard getting to know people here."

"You're not kidding! It's like being back at high school or something."

"Hmm, you know, I think this might actually be _worse_ than high school."

"If that's even possible," Simon grinned as they settled down around Milos.

"Milos, this is Simon, Mr. Bae, and Derek. You guys, this is Milos."

Mr. Bae chuckled, "You can both just call me Kit, no time for formalities during the apocalypse," he grinned and Chloe noticed it was in the exact same way as Simon.

There was a clicking sound as the projector flickered to life and an image was unsteadily projected on the wall facing the crowd. The mob like crowd hushed to hear the clicking and whirring of the projector.

It was due to this hush that Chloe was able to hear Derek's scoff, "The world goes to hell and these people are wasting electricity on a _movie night._"

Chloe was about to tell him off – intimidating or not – the movie night was helping hold their town together. It was better than sitting at home worrying and doing nothing. The crowd was bathed in the blue light from the movie as the fluttery music of the Disney opening played. Just as she opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind, the lights completely cut out and the movie turned off, the town was thrown into utter darkness.

For the longest fifteen seconds Chloe had ever experienced, they sat in silence born of the shock. A woman near the front of the crowd screamed and the spell was broken. People jumped to their feet, ran to the exit, tripped over each other, joined in the screaming, stayed sitting, tried to make themselves as small as possible to avoid getting trampled. In short, it was chaos.

"Scared, little girl?" asked a voice suddenly very close to Chloe's ear.

"N-no!" she said as she jumped away from her unexpected company.

"Could have fooled me," he laughed, but Chloe was getting her bearings back.

"Not the time, Royce. I need to go track down my aunt." Chloe squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the darkness faster. She got up from her seat where she had been remarkably safe from stampeding feet, and tried to feel her way around the people on the ground and toward her aunt's lab, where she knew Aunt Lauren would be working overtime and keeping an eye on the town entrance.

Royce laughed at her quietly, but made no move to follow her. The dim emergency lights flickered on just as Chloe's outstretched hand touched the back wall of the theatre and she took a few steps to the left and dashed out the exit, running to her aunt's lab at the other side of town to make sure the research was ok and find out what happened.

The crowd was once again surprised into silence as they tried to figure themselves out in the dim lighting. People found themselves several feet over from where they believed they were, completely separated from their clique, tangled together with people they had never talked to, lying on the floor but suddenly able to haul themselves to their feet and to safety. The crowd looked at each other in confusion, sizing each other up, and then, almost as one, wearily started to move towards the exit without a word and with a tired sort of energy.

Royce looked around at the small group of people surprised to find him in their midst. "_Hey_," he said slowly, pointing at Derek, "you're that new kid who went on the last raid with us." He had an annoying sort of smirk as he started walking away, Derek could see the wheels in his head turning. It was like he wanted to piss Derek off for some reason, and he wasn't quite sure how to go about it yet, but he was sure he would find a way.

Why he wanted to single out Derek of all people was a mystery. Maybe because he had seen him on the raid, maybe because of some weird macho thing, who knew how Royce's mind worked? Maybe he was just bored. He continued to smirk at Derek as he effortlessly walked through the moving crowd to his father and brother.

As he finally looked away, Derek turned to Simon. "What's his deal?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N -**MizBizSav (also known as the Chlerek tumblr) is a perfect human being without whom this chapter would never have been finished.

* * *

Chloe yanked desperately on the handle of the locked door. "Aunt Lauren?! Aunt Lauren, open the door! Let me in!"

"Chloe, honey, I'm sorry, I-" through the almost transparent window on the door to the research lab Chloe could see her Aunt choking up, firmly holding the door closed though it was already locked. "The lights went off and one of the petri dishes broke… I'm running a blood test. I need you to leave, honey."

"Aunt Lauren, no. You didn't leave me when you thought I was infected."

"You have to leave," she said, "if the blood test comes back positive I'll need to leave the town. I've cleaned everything up and once I'm gone it should be safe, go around the town and try and ask for doctors or scientists. You know where all the research is, now honey I need you to leave."

Chloe took a long hard look at her aunt, thinking about how much harder it had been when her aunt hovered during her own blood test. "Ok… ok," she slowly started backing away. "I'll go look for a scientist."

"Chloe," when Lauren spoke again her voice was small, like she was about to break. She took a moment and when she continued to speak her voice was once again strong, with an odd sort of edge to it. "Tell your Dad that if he doesn't take care of you he'll have to answer to me. I'll make sure of it."

But how? Chloe thought, regardless, she swallowed back tears and took a few steps backwards anyway before turning and running through the city.

She should look for a scientist. They needed one immediately – Aunt Lauren might still have some time before it completely took her over. Even Liz might still have a chance.

The streets were a haze of sameness; Chloe had no idea where she was going. She passed several people but couldn't find it within herself to ask them about continuing the research. A clawing, desperate need for someone to come and fix this struggled with a blind belief that Aunt Lauren would be alright. She couldn't just die, right? It would all be ok.

When she had noticed the smashed petri dish she must've put on some sort of mouth cover and cleaned it up. She was probably exposed for an even smaller amount of time than Chloe herself had been! Besides, they didn't even know what _made_ the virus infect some people but not others. Chloe had been fine – Aunt Lauren would be too, she decided. Everything would be ok. _Everything_ would be-

"Chloe? Chloe!"

Who was that? She knew that voice…

"Hello? Earth to Chloe!"

Someone was standing next to her. Someone she _knew._

"… Is everything alright?"

Someone she was friends with… but her brain wasn't working. There was just an overwhelming sense of _wrongness_ with the world. It was like waking up one morning and suddenly left is right and right is left and up is down, something that confused every moment. Just like when her mother died, but Chloe had been small then and Aunt Lauren had helped her through it. Aunt Lauren.

"Simon," oh, it was Simon. "Let's go." Simon and Derek. They just got to town. Derek was jerking his head in the direction they had been walking, gesturing to Simon.

Simon took a long look at Chloe and seemed to decide that Derek was right and maybe she was better off alone. But wasn't she supposed to be helping them with something? Making sure they didn't get lost in the stupid cluttered little underground town?

"Yeah, ok. We'll see you later."

That's right, she was. Aunt Lauren had told her to show them around.

They walked off.

They hadn't even abandoned her for others yet – usually that only took a few days. Even less time with an adult or a family.

"Wait," she croaked, but they were already gone. She probably wouldn't have been much help anyways; she couldn't for the life of her remember what went in that direction. She thought that maybe someone they knew lived down there. Or maybe it was Derek and Simon who lived there, in which case they could probably find their own way.

So she turned and started staggering on again, except that had been enough of a distraction for Chloe to regain some of her bearings. She turned and started walking in the direction of her house. She wouldn't try to replace her aunt until she _knew_ she was infected. She just wouldn't.

Chloe's new resolve failed to show outwardly, she collapsed down on the couch in the small living room, staring vacantly at the wall. Two hours – she would wait two hours and then she would check the lab again.

If Aunt Lauren was gone what would she do? Who was left? Hadn't her aunt been her entire family?

No. No her father was alive. Her sad, purposeless father.

She got up unsteadily and walked to his room, taking a step inside and finding she didn't know how to say it, and even if she did the lump on the bed didn't seem very receptive. Then slowly, a full three seconds after the click of the door opening, the lump on the bed started to sit up.

"Chloe?"

"_Dad,"_ Chloe didn't know whether it came out as a croak, a sniff, or a broken whisper.

Steve Saunders pulled himself out of bed, lurching to the side slightly precariously. He walked towards his daughter but stopped a couple steps away. Chloe wasn't sure if she was crying but everything was blurry and her dad had no idea how to go about comforting someone. She just sort of collapsed against him and he caught her and she sobbed. She knew he had to be uncomfortable but luckily he didn't let it show.

The next two hours passed in a blur, Chloe was pretty sure she explained to her dad what happened to Aunt Lauren, and then she thought he walked off for a moment but that couldn't be right; he hadn't been able to pull himself out of bed in months. He thought he had lost all meaning in life. And yet a cup of hot chocolate – one of the only hot foods they had on hand – was placed in front of her, and she picked it up as she sat on the couch with her dad next to her.

When the two hour mark came around Chloe was feeling, not better, but much more focused. She gave her dad a small sad smile, put down her half empty cup of hot chocolate, and headed out the door. She _must_ have explained to him what was happening at some point because he seemed unsurprised and gave her his own awkward, almost encouraging, smile back.

As Chloe walked through the town she was still feeling out of sorts, but she walked towards the lab and tried to prepare in case her Aunt wasn't there anymore. Prepare for the worst case scenario, right? Right.

She turned into the hallway that lead out of the town, as well as to her Aunt's lab and immediately knew. She forced herself to keep walking towards the door, left vacantly hanging half open. She entered the lab and was unsurprised, and yet completely unprepared, to see it abandoned. The hazardous materials bin had been emptied; Chloe would have bet her Aunt took it with her to make absolutely certain no one in the lab got infected. The counters looked unnaturally clean and white, same with the walls. All the instruments shone, even her Aunts papers had been neatly organized.

Not a single thing out of place.

Except her Aunt. She belonged there too, and the papers should be piled on the counter so Aunt Lauren could make notes as she went. She sat down at her Aunt's desk, filing through her drawers absently. It took a minute before she noticed the envelopes sitting on the desk, one labeled _Chloe_, the one next to it _Steve,_ and the last one _Current Research._

She opened hers.

_Chloe,_

_I'm sorry I couldn't stay. I guess you already know that the test came back positive. The lab is safe; I made sure everything was sterile before I left._

_You need to find someone else to take over the research. There are other doctors and scientists and researchers in town. You know some of them; they used to work with me at the beginning. Ask them to make an announcement at the next town news meeting. If no one comes forward, talk to them directly, you need to get someone to keep up the research. There's still a chance we can get things back to normal, I was closer than you think. Don't give up hope. Ever._

_Chloe, honey, you've been through so much. You can get through this, you'll get out of this alive._

_I will always love you,_

_Aunt Lauren_

Chloe picked up the envelope along with her father's letter and stood. As she did, something gleamed in the corner of her eye. It was picture frame on Aunt Lauren's desk. Chloe waved to the camera from the background, on the back of a pony at the fair. Near the border of the pony pen stood Chloe's mom and Aunt Lauren, smiling with an arm slung over each other's shoulders.

She picked it up and walked home; she met no one on the way there.

To her immense surprise she opened the door to find her father shoddily attempting to clean. He was wiping down the counters when Chloe walked in, looking more alert than he had since they had come to town. While she was gone her father seemed to have showered, started supper, swept the living room, and had now moved on to the kitchen.

Chloe walked over and wordlessly handed him his letter, fumbling slightly with her own as she did.

Once a week, on Thursdays, the town got together to go over the news. This included anything they could find out about the outside world, usually from running into someone on trips into town, and any news the residents felt the need to share with the town at large. Sometimes they reported a crack in a wall or an arch, sometimes a broken television that needed help fixing.

Everyone had gone to bed for the night so it was too late to track someone down and report her 'news', it would have to wait for tomorrow. Tori had come out of her room at the smell of food and Chloe, having nothing else to do, sat down beside her restlessly and took out the framed picture.

A timer went off and Chloe's dad placed two plates of some sort of stir fry in front of her and Tori. "I ate before the movie," Chloe said. She had had some sort of rations, like usual. No one ever actually _made_ a meal in their house. Aunt Lauren was always too busy, Chloe didn't cook, and everyone else was too depressed.

Her dad gave her an uncertain nod, he was really trying, Chloe realized. She pulled the plate towards her with a muttered 'thanks'. Tori looked like she was in heaven, with an actual cooked meal for the first time in recent memory. Chloe tried to make herself eat but ended up just pushing food around her plate until she could go to bed.

She had no idea how she made it through the night, but eventually it was the next morning and she went out to find the town news announcer.

* * *

**A/N - **So, not actually a lot of action in this chapter but I hope I've managed to convincingly portray Chloe's shock and sadness. I feel like after her Aunt left she just wouldn't know what to do with herself.

I thought for a bit about having Derek or Simon be the ones to comfort her, but it just seemed more right to have it be her father. They _did_ get a cameo though. Probably on their way back from the movie (let's just pretend Kit stayed behind to make sure everyone was ok and not because I blatantly forgot about him, oops).


End file.
